


About the time Aziraphale almost sold his soul to Satan (or what happens when a demon tries to do something good for humanity)

by Ciulla96



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Computer Viruses, Crowley Apologizes, Disappointment, Eating Together, Food, Footnotes, Forgiving Aziraphale, Happy Ending, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Panda antivirus, Sorry Crowley, They love each other, antivirus, they just don't know it yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22936765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciulla96/pseuds/Ciulla96
Summary: After the outbreak on large scale of a new computer virus, Crowley creates Panda Antivirus.Panda is an acronym, but it does NOT stand for Pledge Allegiance Now to the Dark Angel. Not at all.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 21





	About the time Aziraphale almost sold his soul to Satan (or what happens when a demon tries to do something good for humanity)

Opposite to many people’s beliefs, the best food always hide itself in the less crowded places. Or, well, that was what Aziraphale always tried to convince Crowley of. Sure, when in company of the demon he liked to enjoy a more-than-occasional dinner inside the fancy walls of the Ritz or some other Michelin-starred[1] restaurant, but those places with no clients, no queue, hidden behind a corner, family-managed, where a shy waiter suggested you the dish of the day with a kind smile and they served you immediately after because no one else was there to be served, those, according to his words, were the places that in his long life had always reserved him the best surprises[2].

Crowley, for his part, always said that the only reason he found that food any good was because his pathetically empathic heart desperately _wanted_ it to be good, so that those _poor owners_ wouldn’t have to close too soon. The angel always denied, but he could almost never bring himself to finish the food they served and he also left tips close to the 3000%, hoping they would help them get back on their feet.

His new discovery was a little steakhouse lost in the suburbs of London. That place, at first sight, was filthy and poorly managed, no different from a large part of those other little places that served mediocre food in the most secluded parts of the country. At second sight, likewise. At third sight, however, you could see a pregnant woman standing behind the corner, tired and fatigued, her face too skinny to give the impression she was eating enough food to provide both for herself and the life she was carrying inside. A young kid was standing next to her, talking to her, trying to get his mother to rest and leave him to work even though he could not have been older than seven years old. Aziraphale’s heart couldn’t help but slightly break at the sight and he had immediately entered, ordering the most expensive dish on the menu and trying with all of his strength to ignore the fact that the plate his food had been served in had just been taken from what looked like the pile of the dirty ones.

After all, he just had to have a little patience. After a few days, the situation had slightly improved. It was the fifth time that week he went to eat there, and, thanks to his more than generous contribution, the food was actually starting to taste better and a helper had been hired part-time to wash the dishes and do the heaviest works. _It’s not charity_ , Aziraphale had explained to Crowley when he had convinced him to join him there for a lunch, _It’s an investment. It’s not like I lack money, I might as well use it_. But obviously the demon was going to contest something like giving away huge sums to do some good without getting anything back. It was his job, after all, to prevent good things to happen in the world.

The owners of the restaurant, on the other side, couldn’t believe that their godforsaken restaurant had finally been visited by some kind of good Samaritan. And he had also brought a friend, today! Would he be levingan equally important tip[3]?

The friend didn’t seem like the nicest person, though. Sitting at the opposite sides of the table, the two clients really seemed like the opposite of one another; the first one, white from the sole of his shoes to the tip of his hair, was sitting straight and eating compositely, while the other one, dressed in black and with flaming red hair, had not a single refined bone in his body. And he had never bothered to take off the sunglasses, too. Plus, he had ordered only wine – plenty of – and didn’t try to eat anything, but still, he wouldn’t stop criticizing the food. Taking a fry from the nicer man’s dish, he started waving it up and down, bringing attention on its disturbing state of softness.

“Aziraphale”, he said, incapable of looking at the poor state that food was in, “I’ll admit when you made all that presentation about the best food being in the smallest places and _Oh no dear I’m not trying to bring you into a godforsaken disgusting place again_ [4] I almost took into consideration the possibility of actually believing you, but of course, I was disappointed once again”. With nonchalance, he let the fry fall on the floor and carefully smashed it under a shoe. “Whops”, he said, an ironic grin on his face clearly showing he wasn’t repenting at all.

“Crowley”, Aziraphale sighed, shaking his head. “Don’t be like that. You’ll make it hard for her to clean”.

“Why, do you think they ever cleaned this floor before?” Crowley asked, snorting a laugh.

“Why yes, dear”, was the angel’s response, “It’s spotless”.

When the demon looked again, the floor that was filthy until two seconds before was shining clean – the fry had also disappeared and given Aziraphale’s fixation for not wasting food it probably had gone back to his dish in perfect condition. The pregnant woman was looking at the state the floor was in with wide eyes, unbelieving of the miracle that had just happened.

“Didn’t you get a reprimand like last week for doing too many nonsense miracles? With really harsh words, nonetheless?” Crowley inquired with a smug grin.

Aziraphale blushed. “It’s for a good cause”, he replied. “Just because you think it’s nonsense to help people, doesn’t mean that up there they’re going to reprimand me for a good cause”.

“I suppose the last time you didn’t do it for a good cause?” Crowley asked, getting himself more comfortable on the chair. _As if the angel ever did something which wasn’t for a good cause._

If possible, Aziraphale blushed even more. “I will remind you that I had just miracled us more wine”.

In Crowley’s opinion there wasn’t better cause than that, but sure, he could see why the angel’s superiors would think otherwise. Certain was, however, that Aziraphale would have had to repeat the same miracle at least a couple of times, later in the night, if he wanted to be forgiven for taking him in that awful place.

“Crowley, please, at least taste the steak. It’s really…” He hesitated, taken aback by the demon’s sceptic frown. “Well… _Edible_ ”.

“If you can’t finish it, just leave it there”, Crowley answered, rolling his eyes.

“But I don’t want to be rude!” He whined, whispering.

With a theatrical sigh, Crowley straightened up in his chair and drew the plate to himself, starting to devour large mouthful with nothing even resembling the angel’s elegance. “My word, angel, your obsession for doing good things is going to get me killed”, he complained with his mouth full.

“Doing something good once in a while won’t kill you, my dear, don’t be absurd. And don’t speak while you’re chewing”, the angel replied. He couldn’t believe he had to teach the demon the fundamentals of _manners_.

Ignoring Aziraphale’s last comment, Crowley replied: “I do plenty of good things. Just yesterday I did something that will benefit thousands of humans”.

“Oh, really?” The angel inquired, his turn to be sceptical. “Please, do tell me”.

“Do you know that virus that is causing so much trouble to humans lately? The one that makes naked women appear uncontrollably on everyone’s desktops and that no one can seem to get rid of?”

Aziraphale blushed furiously. “Is that your doing? I should have known! I can’t get rid of it myself, you… You…”

Before he could come up with what wouldn’t surely have been an actual insult, Crowley stopped him, swallowing the last bit of that poor excuse for a steak. “I have nothing to do with it, angel. But I did create an antivirus that is apparently the only one capable of removing it and it works perfectly”.

The angel was pleasantly surprised. All this time, getting frustrated about the misbehaviour of the demon that didn’t stop even when they were together… Could it be that his good influence was finally paying off?

“Really? That’s delightfully nice, Crowley. Do you think I could try and use it? How is it called?”

“Of course!” Replied Crowley. He tried to hide the spiteful satisfaction he was feeling while the perfect occasion for taking revenge on the angel’s choice of food offered itself, but even if it did show on his face the angel was surely too focused on the pride he felt for Crowley’s conversion to notice. “It’s called Panda antivirus. I could come by to your place and help you install it, if you’d like”.

“Panda antivirus! That’s cute!” The angel exclaimed, overexcited. “I didn’t know you liked Panda bears!”

“I don’t”, huffed Crowley, “It’s an acronym”. He immediately bit his tongue, because of course Aziraphale was going to ask…

“Is it? What does it stand for?”

Panicking, Crowley tried to come up with something. “It… It stands for Perfect Antivirus… New… Durable and… and… Absolutely safe[5]!”

“Sounds promising!”

Crowley grinned. Angels were so naïve.

A little later they were standing in the angel’s bookshop, tinkering with his computer.

“Here it is. Panda antivirus! I think I found it”, Aziraphale was saying. “You really came in at the right time, a couple of days and I would have just miracled the virus away. I’m certain that would have counted as a selfish reason”, he commented, his voice full of relief.

“Yeah, I’m sure the consequences would have been disastrous, angel”, Crowley commented, pointing at the computer. “There, click on _Download now for free_ and then run it”.

Even a simple task like that was difficult when your computer kept opening pop-ups about questionable stuff. Aziraphale accidently clicked on one and was also readdressed on a dating site – not the conventional kind of dating, of course. He frowned at the content. “As much as I’m flattered that this beautiful woman who lives near me wants to meet me, I don’t think I should…”

Huffing, Crowley reached for the keyboard and closed all the invasive pop-ups. “She doesn’t want to actually meet you”, he explained, but decided to stop when he saw Aziraphale’s hurt expression. “Here”, he simply said, “I downloaded it. Now you simple have to run it, accept the terms and conditions and install it”.

He was already chuckling to himself for what was going to happen, when Aziraphale did something Crowley would have never expected: he started reading the terms and conditions. “What are you doing?” He asked. “No one actually read those, just click on _I accept_!”

“Now, dear”, Aziraphale reasoned as if he was talking with a kid. “How could I accept the terms and conditions if I don’t even know what actually _is_ in the terms and conditions?”

“Oh, it’s just, usual, boring stuff. I copied them from another program, just stupid bureaucracy. There really is no need for you to…”

“No, Crowley, I insist. You did a good job and you deserve to be given credit for it. I’m going to read every single word”.

And so he did, continuously tampered by Crowley trying to convince him to stop.

“Angel, come on, don’t be unreasonable, it’s going to take hours to read all of it…”

“Customer understands that certain Service Plans may have fee, including, but not limited to, _Service Fee_ and/or _Activation Fee_ payable either on an annual basis or on a monthly basis…”

“My antivirus is free. I really just copied random stuff from others’ terms and conditions…”

“Customers hereby acknowledge that circumstances outside of Panda Antivirus team’s reasonable control (e.g. acts of God, a large-scale outbreak of a new computer virus, sabotage, Armageddon) may cause significant delays in Panda Antivirus’ ability to schedule an assistance session…”

“You always say you want to integrate with humans, well, humans do not read those! Be more like them!”

“The information costumers provide is used to fulfil their specific request. The registered members of our website are automatically added to our site announcement mailing list…”

“Angel, that’s totally random, come on. I don’t even have a mailing list!”

“Costumers agree in giving their soul to Satan whenever the moment of their death shall arrive…”

Silence fell in the bookshop, broken after a few seconds by a simple, miserable sentence from the angel. “Oh, Crowley…”

“I’m sorry”, replied the demon, with unexpected sincerity – even though the only thing he was actually sorry about was to have been caught. “It was just a joke, it’s not like you’re ever going to die, after all. Don’t be mad”.

“I’m not mad. Just disappointed”, sighed the angel. “How many people did you actually get to freely give their souls to your side?”

“A few thousands, as of right now. It’s been fun, I have to admit it. But I’ve had enough fun – I’ll remove the clause. I promise. Here”, he said, snapping his fingers, “Gone. It’s safe, now”.

Looking at the screen Aziraphale noticed that in fact the clause was not up there anymore. Crowley was looking at him in silence, waiting for a reaction, anything that reassured him he was forgiven. But Aziraphale wasn’t prone to forgiving just yet – he pointed at the door and simply said: “I think you should go now”.

“Angel, come on!” Crowley complained. But soon enough he was pushed outside the door of the shop, which closed in his face with a loud bang.

A few days later, Aziraphale was trying to go through his computer, revisiting his accounting system, still thinking about Crowley’s behaviour.

He wasn’t actually disappointed in his friend as much as he was in himself. First of all, Crowley was a demon. It’s not like Aziraphale could complain about a demon being a demon. Still, he hated himself for keeping his hopes high. He had hoped Crowley could show some affection, or even just some respect towards him. He didn’t ask for him to stop being the obscure being he was, but at least to be kept out of his dark plots. And just when he had let his guard down, really starting to hope that also in a demon there could be, deep down, something good, there he went, trying to make him sell his soul so Satan.

Of course, as an ethereal being, he didn’t actually have a soul to sell. He couldn’t really die, and the only means through which he could have been killed were the same that would have destroyed every single fibre of his essence, not leaving behind a shadow of a soul to be sold. Still, he could have lived the rest of his life knowing Satan had a right on his hypothetical soul, and that wasn’t acceptable.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a notification sound on his computer. Confused, he saw a page opening in front of him and a text appearing on top of the screen, saying: “A virus just crawled in your computer!”

Under it was the image of a snake slowly crawling across the page. He desperately clicked on the snake to try and stop it, but it kept avoiding the cursor proceeding towards the centre of the screen. Aziraphale didn’t know much about viruses[6], but he knew that something horrible would have happened if that snake had reached the centre of the screen.

Panicking, he turned off the computer, but the image didn’t disappear. Instead, the snake reached even faster the middle of the screen and transformed into a stylized version of a much well-known demon.

The words above the demon disappeared, replaced by another sentence. “I’m sorry, Angel”, they said, making Aziraphale smile against his own intentions.

Whenever he messed up, Crowley was always able to make it up to him, one way or another. It could be some fancy foreign food Aziraphale hadn’t had the chance to taste in a long time, it could be a new, rare, autographed book, it could be some expensive bottle of wine, or, apparently, it could also be just a personalized virus for his computer. Aziraphale always forgave him too easily, perhaps, but after all, you can’t ask an angel to stop being an angel, just like you can’t ask a demon to stop being a demon.

Plus, Crowley probably would have never told him how to get rid of that new virus if he hadn’t accepted his apologies.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 An invention of the archangel Michael, as the name so gracefully suggests. Aziraphale never quite understood the reason Michael took so much trouble inventing a system to classify the best restaurants in the world when he had no intention to sully the temple of his celestial body with food. The fact that Aziraphale thought an Archangel had to have a selfish reason to do something nice for humans was probably a sign that he was spending too much time with a certain bad influence. [return to text]
> 
> 2 Of course, without angels’ natural protection from diseases, he would have also found the best intoxications mostly in the same places. [return to text]
> 
> 3 Obviously, Crowley would have never left an equally important tip, nor a tip at all. The only time he had ever left a tip was when Aziraphale had dared him to, and even then, he had miracled the money away from the counter and given them back. No need for Aziraphale to know, though. [return to text]
> 
> 4 It was the eleventh time. Angels’ defences were stronger that demons’, so Crowley had even been sick, a couple of those times. For a demon to fall for the angel’s excuse again, there had to be some problem with his long-term memory, or – Satan Forbid – this particular demon was especially condescending when talking about the angel at issue. [return to text]
> 
> 5 It actually stood for Pledge Allegiance Now to the Dark Angel, but it could as well have stayed for Poor Aziraphale, No, Don’t Accept! [return to text]
> 
> 6 He actually knew nothing about viruses. He didn’t even know how he kept catching them. It was as if someone used his computer without his permission and visited unsafe sites for the mere pleasure of contaminating his device and corrupting his search history. [return to text]


End file.
